I don't think the rest of the world really cares what happens between the stupid countries in the middle east.

You'd be wrong considering how many bible thumpers in the United States eat up the whole "chosen people" thing with the Jews. There are Americans that would sacrifice their country to keep Israel safe.

If it was going to happen I'd so it going down this way with some leeway in who bombs who first.

1st: Israel and Iran starting bombing eachother
2nd: Israel vs Iran goes nuclear, Russia supports Iran against Israel.
3rd: The Russians and Iranians not giving anytime to the Americans and Europeans launch attacks in the Mid East and Europe
4th: China becomes more aggressive in taking over Islands in the Pacific that have been claimed by them and Japan.
5th: China invades Taiwan to finally get rid of the Nationalists, North Korea invades South Korea

At this point its basically NATO vs Russia, Iran, China and North Korea and obviously we all see where it could easily go from there. Just my idea of how it could start.

I don't think the rest of the world really cares what happens between the stupid countries in the middle east.

We do. because extremism isn't contained by borders among lots of other things too.

Extremist don't stop at their borders and they burden innocent people. Look at how extremist have swept across parts of Africa and how extremist regimes have killed people wanting nothing to do with warring factions. Have you heard of the little girl who was shot in face just because she preached the idea of female education?

Some of the richest people live or have invested in the Middle East. Its at the best interest of the world economy to keep that money stabilize.

And if we ignore it we get into bad situations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. You have Pakistan which has a very unstable government and nukes. Its a known safe haven for terrorist in fact Pakistan was harboring the most notorious of the bunch. And despite being an "ally" the US can't rely on them for much of anything. We are only allied with them because they have nukes and we need to keep them close. As much as we would like to, we can't even call them out on the whole Bin Laden thing as much as we want to because of nukes and terrorist harboring. As much of failed state Pakistan is, we still have to let them sit at the big boys table because we let them get nukes.

Saudi Arabia is made up of a bunch of hypocritical oppressive rich dudes. Sadly we put up with their crap because they are rich so the world can't afford to piss them off and their plot of land is strategic.

Why are people still afraid that Russia is the big threat? The Cold war is over and Russia is enjoying their new found Government, they won't risk losing their newly found wealth and freedom.

There is still a tremendous amount of red scare preaching in the US. Hell it was basically the entire foreign policy platform of one of our Presidential candidates and another person running for the nom went as far as to try and encourage a new McCarthy era in our government hunting for Commies and Muslims.

Things are going to have to change drastically for there to be a true world war. It won't involve China vs the US, our economies can't survive without each other. It won't involve Russia as an antagonist as they are not the military super power of the past. It won't involve a unification of African countries or Middle Eastern countries against the US unless they enjoy starving to death. We live in a global economy. World Wars don't work anymore because everyone is too intertwined. Small conflicts will continue to exist, but a full on war consuming entire continents is not going to happen again any time soon.

I'm going to guess it'll have something to do with the current poor economic state. Where people don't have money, demand something, government doesn't agree, civilians wage war, government kills innocents, another country steps in, another country doesn't agree with that and defends the government.... ding, war.

Uh where have you been for the past 15 years? Look at africa and anything eastern europe to china.

Uncle Joe may be gone, but Russia still has a huge stack of nuclear weapons.

And what are they going to do with them? They aren't going to nuke Israel in the name of a couple billion dollars in trade with Syria and Iran. The consequences for them would be devastating. Nuclear weapons are a badge saying you can be at the adult table on international politics. They have existed for nearly a century now, well 70 years, and they have been used twice. Twice. Russia's enormous arsenal is exactly as dangerous as Pakistan or India's rather small ones. It isn't unless they are stolen by terrorists who don't have to face economic consequences. I am concerned about exactly one country having nuclear weapons, and that is including Iran who I think eventually gets one under UN agreement, North Korea. They are the only country that has a government that is so truly unstable that they would use one. My hierarchy of states I'm concerned about using nukes is: North Korea, Israel, then Pakistan who have a joke of a government that doesn't even control their entire country. And the other two are markedly lower of a concern than North Korea.

You'd be wrong considering how many bible thumpers in the United States eat up the whole "chosen people" thing with the Jews. There are Americans that would sacrifice their country to keep Israel safe.

This is what religion does.

Religious extremists don't run the country, so that point is completely irrelevant and really just looks like a cheap shot at religion in general.

i think Isreal is gonna piss off Iran and Iran will get its investers (China and Russia b/c of oil) to help them out which will cause US and its friends to get involved. Yay russia/china/pakistan/iran/korea(maby) vs Us/UK/Isreal/ other friends. Iran already said if Isreal attacks them they will attack the US they dont care if we r involved or not they hate us, and Isreal already hinted that if Obama became Pres again they were prolly gonna attack.

Russia won't join China, they hate the Chinese much more than they do the USA.

i might vote for russia to become the big dog after said war. i think they would sit it out as much as they could, and let everybody else beat each other up. maybe they would do their own little thing at the end, some territory grabbing, but nothing to endanger their newfound status

Why are people still afraid that Russia is the big threat? The Cold war is over and Russia is enjoying their new found Government, they won't risk losing their newly found wealth and freedom.

I totally agree with this. Russia is no threat. Neither is China, to be honest. The world, especially the developed world (which holds all international political power and influence) is so deeply interconnected through economy, politics, trade, etc., that war simply isn't in anyone's interest. Wars of such scale wont happen until human society and politics changes profoundly, and that's not happening for a long, long time. It might as well never happen at all.

WW3 will happen when humanity will be in a desperate need of resources.

Scenarios like power hungry mongrels rising to conquer the world, are no longer plausible in our age, and given the destructive potential of modern weapons, no country will start a war without serious consideration. This also makes scenarios like China invading...something in the west, not that plausible.

Its already started, but in the form of an economic war. Between China and USA.
The catalyst for conflict will be the South China sea and all those small Asian nations who think they're big boys talking shit to China.
The base of operations will be in Australia, leaving the countries in the middle as just buffers, while America and Australia can build heaps of shit and send it north with literally no interruptions.
The EU will sit it out, because at this point they will be fighting each other again because of an economic collapse.
It will be 1939 all over again and this time the 4th Reich will win (not suggesting the rise of Fascism, but the reason it will be run by them is because when Europe collapses, they will blame it on Germany, because Germany is such an economic power house, so the Europeans will try and start shit with them for not bailing them out enough).. Germany will be the number one superpower after all of this, especially when they control the majority of Europe. Also the USA will be so weakened from conflict with China, that they will basically fall back into the dark ages and not even attempt to assist the EU while Germany conquers it.

Basically after this:
China will be a capitalist puppet in Asia.
Europe will be run by Germany, especially the mainland, whilst the northern Scandinavian areas will be united under the Kalmah Union (Norway Sweden Finland Iceland) - Ill leave Denmark out, I reckon the Germans will take there lands.
USA will go from a super power to a middle power because of dead economy and war with China, they will basically be like todays Russia...
Australia will be king of South East Asia, Japan will be King of North Asia. China will be there slave labor. (This is because there will be so much American investment into the countries during the war, that after the war these countries will still continue to prosper).
Middle East will be run by a Shiite union between Iran, Iraq and Syria. Israel will be destroyed, the jews will flee back into Europe and America.